Celebrating Acts of Kindness

These nominations may recognise an excellent piece of work, a strong work ethic, exemplary behaviour, or notable resilience and determination. Time and again, however, I have been struck by how often students are recognised for unprompted acts of kindness.

These acts of kindness are often small in scale but large in impact. For example, a Year 10 student voluntarily choreographed the Year 4 dance for the Dance Festival; a Year 12 student gave up her private study periods to teach swimming to small groups of Year 3 and 4 pupils; and a Year 13 student has been keeping a Year 1 pupil company during their daily school bus journey, patiently doing Maths with her, knowing she is just five years old and has the longest journey of all. These are just a few of the many shining examples that remind us: kindness in words creates confidence, kindness in thinking creates profoundness, and kindness in giving creates love.

 What is especially touching is that, in most cases, students are completely unaware of the reasons why they have been nominated until their stories are read aloud at the Head’s Commendation event. That moment is always poignant, as it serves as a powerful reminder that no act of kindness, however small, is ever wasted. In fact, it is these very actions that shape the kind of school and community in which everyone can thrive. At Northampton High, we strive to instil the belief that kindness is not just a virtue, but a force that creates unity, nurtures relationships and strengthens our shared humanity.

That is why I was especially delighted when Mrs Saunders-Wall and Mr Rickman introduced the Kindness Award Certificate in the Junior School earlier this year. Since January, we have celebrated a Year 6 pupil for being kind to a classmate in need of a friend, another Year 6 pupil showing some Year 3 girls at Wraparound Care how to make paper umbrellas, a Year 5 pupil for volunteering as a peer mentor in Maths, and – perhaps most charmingly – a group of Year 2 pupils for carefully rescuing stranded worms from the playground. These moments may seem small, but they speak volumes about the character and spirit of our students.

Stories like these, from all corners of our school, reaffirm something we all instinctively know: in a world where acts of kindness can often go unnoticed or undervalued, they are in fact the very threads that hold a community together. They bring joy, offer comfort and shine a light during the more difficult days. By recognising these actions both formally and informally, we teach our pupils that kindness is not only noticed, but deeply valued.

By celebrating acts of kindness we also pay tribute to the school’s historical status as a church school, a legacy preserved in our crest through the Diocesan keys. Since the school joined the GDST in 2007, we are now non-denominational, something reflected in our diverse and vibrant student and staff body. However, the universal Christian values of kindness, charity and service remain at the heart of our ethos and are lived out in the everyday life of the school.

Long may that continue.

Dr Lee
Headteacher

We welcomed some parents in to Stay and Play at Nursery. This is a valuable time for the parents to understand what learning opportunities are available to the children on a typical day, it also helps  the children to begin to understand that their parents will sometimes come into school for different events and to get them used to their parents leaving them. 

Our book of the week is ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’ and we enjoyed listening to the story with props during our weekly library session.  We have also been acting out the story in PE so we remember the different stages of the life cycle.

In Preschool this week we have been looking at the life cycle of birds, but a flamingo in particular. The story this week was called ‘Ringo the Flamingo’ and it introduces disability and some of the unique differences between each of us.

With this in mind during our PSHE session, we talked about the things we liked about each other and everyone  received a certificate with something that makes them a great member of our class. The girls then took it in turns to choose a friend and say something they enjoy about them.

At Forest School we used magnifying glasses to look for bugs and practiced taking and managing our own risks when it came to jumping from a higher platform. We read the story ‘Superworm’ and tried to look for worms but the ground has been rather dry with this hot weather. Instead the water tray and pipes were filled and played with.

The girls have really taken to the story ‘Ringo the Flamingo’ and have been using the puppets to recall and act out the story. They even thought to add a fire engine in their play when it came to the part of the story where a fire started. The girls could also tell me that Ringo saved the baby chick by cuddling it during the fire.

In PE we have played some team games where we all worked together to pass a ball along the line in various ways. This included over our heads and under our legs. We also played a rather fun bean bag game with various actions, the best action however was when ‘flamingo’ was called and we all had to stand very still on one leg like a flamingo!

Reception have been learning all about the lifecycle of a butterfly.

We read the story of ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’ before creating our own life cycles from pasta.

The girls were thrilled when a special caterpillar surprise was delivered to the classroom. They now have five live caterpillars to observe and watch the process of the caterpillars growing before creating a chrysalis.

There has been a buzz of excitement every day when documenting how the caterpillars have changed from day to day. Some of the girls have chosen to write a diary about the caterpillars and others have eagerly measured the length in cm. As a class we are keeping a tally of the number of days it takes for the whole life cycle to happen.

Year 1 are having fun exploring their topic of Space.

The book we have been reading is ‘Beegu’ who is a little alien who crash lands on Earth and tries to make friends. The girls thought very carefully about how Beegu would have felt and used adjectives to describe her feelings. They then continued to consider Beegu’s feelings when she was looking through the fence and watching the children playing in the playground. The girls used speech bubbles to infer what Beegu might be thinking.

We have been reading and discussing our focus text ‘The Pirates Next Door’ and other books linked to the sea including ‘Stella the Segull’ and ‘On a Tall Tall Cliff’.

Recently, we have been practising our class assembly, which will be a short play called ‘Seaside Shenanigans’, based on ‘The Lighthouse Keeper’s Lunch’. The girls have thrown themselves wholeheartedly into learning their parts, putting into practise a range of skills including reading with expression and listening to others.

We can’t wait to share it with you all!

Year 3 are enjoying the link with Humanities which our current text, ‘Escape from Pompeii’ provides.

Knowledge about how volcanoes erupt has definitely helped the girls to understand the tragedy faced by the residents of the city almost 2000 years ago. Watching a detailed animation of the devastation also prompted the use of lots of powerful verbs and interesting adjectives to describe the setting.

A range of drama and role play activities this week will lead to writing a short recount of the eruption of Vesuvius.

Year 4 have had an incredible time this term diving into the poignant tale of The Lion and the Unicorn! They have embraced Lenny’s journey as a World War II evacuee, bringing the story to life through heartfelt diary entries and letters home.

A particularly memorable highlight was our visit from Mrs Edwards, a real-life evacuee, who graciously shared her remarkable experiences with the girls. Her stories have not only enriched our understanding but have also sparked wonderful discussions in the classroom.

It’s been truly heartwarming to see our young learners engage with history in such a personal way and develop empathy through Lenny’s eyes. We cannot wait to see how his story unfolds!

Year 5 are having a fabulous time learning about the Titanic at the moment… unfortunately the lead character in our book decided to stow away!

The girls wrote some amazing advertising leaflets, using superlatives, and have been doing some research to gather information and eye-witness accounts for their newspaper articles.

We are extremely lucky to have a visiting speaker coming in on Monday, Tim Allebone, who has met two of the Titanic survivors and will have some wonderful insights to share with us.

The pupils talked about their love of history (both the subject and generally) and they also gave the girls a bit of an insight into their lives in the Senior School.

The Year 7 pupils had a wealth of knowledge about the development of the railways and answered questions ranging from the first locomotives to whether highwaymen ever used to attack trains! They also talked about the work they had been doing in lessons on the Industrial Revolution and whether or not King John really was such a bad guy. They answered questions about hockey and how this has changed as a game over the years.

We were really grateful for the time they took to come and see us.

Northampton won the toss and chose to bowl first. A great first match for the team and a convincing performance by all.

Players of the Match went to:
Batter: Avani
Bowler: Olivia T

Pitsford: 213 / 5
Northampton High School: 290 / 2

An excellent afternoon of Netball was had by all at the recent Northampton High School hosted Bee Netball Tournament. Two teams from Northampton High School – Northampton High School Pink and Northampton High School Yellow, participated alongside teams from local primary schools: Wootton Park, Hardingstone, Woodland View, and Delapre.

The tournament was played in a competitive spirit, with all the girls demonstrating great enthusiasm and determination. A particular highlight was the versatility shown by the players, with all the girls playing a variety of positions throughout the afternoon.

The standard of play was high, with some closely contested matches. Northampton High School Yellow displayed great teamwork and finished in 4th place overall.

However, the day belonged to Northampton High School Pink, who emerged as the overall winners of the tournament.

The tournament was a great success, showcasing the talent and sportsmanship of all the young participants.

On Monday,  a group of Year 5 girls went to Moulton College to play a Quicksticks Hockey Tournament organised by Northampton Saints Hockey club. We entered two teams and played in two different tiered tournaments.

The teams played really well, even though we had some tough competition including mixed teams of boys and girls.

We conceded a few goals and lost a lot of our matches but despite this we showed great effort and played brilliantly over all.

Both girls danced beautifully and the results were amazing.

Emily came 5th in her light jig, 2nd in her slip jig solo dances. Caoimhe came 6th in her light jig, 1st in her reel, 1st in her slip jig and 4th in her treble reel solo dances.

Both girls then danced again in the championship and both won their age groups! 

Caoimhe is under 9 primary Ulster Champion and Emily is under 11 Ulster Champion. Both girls have now progressed onto the next level. 

We are very excited to share the news of our brand new girls-only toddler group starting this month!

Girls aged 1-3 and their parents, grandparents and guardians are all welcome to come along and delve into a wide variety of toys, crafts and ‘surprise play stations’ created to spark imagination and fun times. Always remember ‘dress to get messy!’.

This toddler group will be held fortnightly on Tuesdays, 9.15am – 10am, a full list of dates and the online booking form can be found on the school website https://www.northamptonhigh.co.uk/admissions/open-events/

Please feel free to share this with any friends who may be interested, and come and join us with your little ones too. Our next session is, Tuesday 20 May.